Last Week of Fifth Grade

Mr. Gottwald is a weird teacher.
Please? There’s no one else
I can ask, except you guys
and Mom and Dad,
and they don’t know anything.

I stare off.I never thought about it:
What is a Magos? Wait—
I come back from the next room
with the dictionary.

No, she pushes my finger
off the edge. That’s a magus.
I wish it was that easy.
That’s not how it’s spelled.

Why do you care so much?
I’m sure stuff gets misspelled
all the time.

God, you sound like Mom.

I look down
at the back yard.

You could ask the Deeds.
They’ve been here forever.
Or maybe someone
at the Perrin House.

She shakes her head.Doug said he thinks it’s a kind of tree
that used to be all around here.
Norma thought it was the original name
of the old Junior High. And no one
answered at the big house.
I left a message for the landlord,
but I don’t think he’ll get back
to me in time.

Wow. She actually knocked
on the Perrin house.

In the yard, my brother
and his best friend Andy are doing something
behind a tree. I could almost see
if I went to another window. Mom calls
from downstairs for dinner.

Sorry. I have no idea.

She shrugs and pouts.

Before I go downstairs I open my math textbook.
On the inside cover, below the homework,
there’s a note
in my handwriting:

Survey

Brand New

Notes

I wanted to have most of Estuary II written by the start of 2015. Instead I've been on a three seven-month break, taking lots of inspiration from crappy TV and my newfound passion for photography. Part I is now starting to get clearer, which will make Part II a lot easier to write.

Thanks so much for reading.

xo,
Adam

Who are you?

I'm a poet, editor, tinkerer and designer. I love making books, pickles, and something just south of sense.

If you’re here at all, it means we’ve probably met, or you know someone who knows me. Thank you for being here. I put my heart, spirit, blood, and knuckle grease into this story for 12 years. It means so much to me that you’re here, reading it.

So it’s with great sadness I’m putting my strange, endless story on hold. My heart is with my photography these days, and has been for several years. I’ll keep the site up until the domain expires, and then it will return to the form of so many other unfinished stories: a meticulously organized collection of chapters on a personal computer.

Thank you for 12 wonderful and transformative, demanding and soul-wracking years.